irtual CD Launch Party via Zoom. Saturday, Septe In 2007, a fl ash fl ood ripped through Kathryn McKelvey’s home in a rural Oregon town, leaving it utterly destroyed and her family homeless. As fi res now consume the western United States, McKelvey, a tireless homeless advocate, shows through her personal story how the climate crisis – and the increasing frequency and destructiveness of the natural disasters that come with it – is causing more and more people to fall into poverty and homelessness, with no safety net. The increasing infl ux of natural disasters is more than a warning of the impending climate crisis. The canary in the coalmine is long dead; the climate crisis has already arrived. Not only are temperatures steadily rising, but every year disasters strike with increasing frequency and intensity. According to data from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT), reported natural disasters in the United States have been steadily increasing in the past 40 years. As I write this, smoke still lays heavy in Oregon as the West Coast suffers from an onslaught of wildfi res. These fi res are the deadliest of the year in California and has caused over 500,000 Oregonians Page 8 to be placed under varying levels of evacuation and evacuation readiness. In 2007, a fl ash fl ood ripped through my home in a rural Oregon town. We had 20 minutes to get out and move to higher ground. The house we fl ed was overcome with river water, trapping us on the top fl oor overnight wondering if anyone knew where to fi nd us. As the water slowly receded, volunteers from neighboring cities helped us clean the destruction. Of around 800 homes affected, 600 did not have fl ood insurance. We were one of those families that couldn’t afford any such coverage. At 15 years old, I was thrown from living barely above the poverty line into homelessness. In the initial days and weeks, volunteers from the nearby towns brought supplies and helped clear debris. Eventually, they stopped coming but the destruction remained. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) surveyed land for emergency trailers but members of unaffected neighborhoods campaigned against them claiming they would lower property values. We had nowhere else to go. Nearly a year after the fl ood, 21 trailers were fi nally placed on a lot—not nearly enough for everyone affected. They smelled like formaldehyde, gave us headaches, and were soon infested with mice. In 2009, barely a year after moving into the trailers, residents were evicted from the small trailers. The lucky ones were given cash incentives. My father didn’t receive his check until 2014, seven years after the fl ood. For those seven years, my father lived in an RV on the land where our house once stood. He was a general contractor and handyman who had now lost his tools and workshop, with no funds to replace them. He couldn’t fi nd work and relied on food banks and clothing closets. People soon forgot how he had come to be that way. He was an outcast - kids made fun of him and friends stopped calling. He had always worked sunup till sundown to provide a life for us, but lost everything to the river. It was not his fault. He did not deserve this. Houselessness is the result of extenuating circumstances. Whether it be addiction, poverty, racism, lack of healthcare, or a natural disaster. No one deserves to live without shelter. There is no reason people in the richest country in the world should live on the streets. Over the past 40 years, despite high national GDP, the United States rests in the median on the scale of those that become homeless due to natural disasters in the western hemisphere. In the United States, over 600,000 people
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